Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@nytcooking
Topics: Food and Drink, US News, New York, Weird, TikTok
Emily Brown
Topics: Food and Drink, US News, New York, Weird, TikTok
A woman pulled back the curtain on one of New York City's most exclusive restaurant to reveal that it actually doesn't even exist.
I know what you're thinking: how was an entire city tricked by a fake restaurant? Well, 'Mehran's Steakhouse' was a real location - it just happened to be the home of a group of tech employees in their 20s.
As a joke, the group named their house 'Mehran's Steakhouse' in honor of roommate Mehran Jalali, who enjoyed cooking, and after a few homemade meals, their friends started to leave glowing reviews for the food.
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Things started to snowball as people started turning up at the group's house to try the highly-rated food, with Mehran telling the Mail Online: "Someone walked into our door saying, 'hey, I'd like some steak'. And we're like, 'oh, sorry.'"
Recognising they had some real interest, the group decided to see just how successful they could be with Mehran's Steakhouse.
They set up a website for the venue, and decided to move the operation out of their home kitchen for one night only.
More than 900 New Yorkers joined the waitlist, convinced they were about to dine in one of the best restaurants in the city.
A reporter and TikToker with New York Times Cooking lifted the lid on the restaurant after the exclusive night took place, describing in a video how the group created fake menus, brought in an inexperienced 'sommelier' and whipped up all the dishes themselves before serving them to the clueless customers.
The roommates sought help from their friends across the continent, all of who agreed to pitch in to make the steakhouse come to life.
"Basically, every single person said yes, they flew in from Canada. They flew in from Mexico, they flew from the West coast. It was so many friends, and they helped us do all the work to make it happen," Mehran said.
Bear in mind, none of the group had prior restaurant or cooking experience, other than the food Mehran had served up at home.
The restaurant was themed around the 'Bovine Circle of Life', which at one point involved customers being served glasses of milk.
"If you'd waited on a waitlist for a year and a half to get into a restaurant, and it was this, how would you feel?," the New York Times reporter asked.
While some of the diners might not have been happy about paying for what turned out to be a fake experience, Mehran and the rest of the group haven't been put off.
"Mehran’s Steakhouse is a one-time wonder, but we hope not to be a one hit wonder. We hope to do all kinds of fun stuff over the years," he said.